Fátima was named for a 12th-century Moorish princess, and since 1917 it has been one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. On May 13, 1917, and in each subsequent month until October of that year, three young peasant children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reportedly saw a woman who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. On October 13, a crowd (generally estimated at about 70,000) gathered at Fátima witnessed a “miraculous solar phenomenon” immediately after the lady had appeared to the children. After initial opposition, the bishop of Leiria on October 13, 1930, accepted the children’s visions as the appearance of the Virgin Mary; in the same year, papal indulgences were granted to pilgrims. The content of the devotion includes frequent recitation of the rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The first national pilgrimage to Fátima took place in 1927, and the basilica was begun in 1928 and consecrated in 1953. With a tower 213 feet (65 metres) high, surmounted by a large bronze crown and a crystal cross, it is flanked by hospitals and retreat houses and faces a vast square in which is the little Chapel of the Apparitions. Numerous cures have been reported, though publicity has not been sought. On the 50th anniversary of the first vision, May 13, 1967, a crowd of pilgrims, estimated to number one million, gathered at Fátima to hear Pope Paul VI say mass and pray for peace.

At the end of the 20th century, there was growing speculation concerning the three messages the Virgin Mary was said to have revealed to the peasant children in 1917. Though two of the messages had been disclosed in the 1940s—commonly interpreted as the prediction of the end of World War I and the start of World War II and the rise and fall of communism—the third had been kept secret by the Vatican, giving rise to numerous theories. In May 2000 it was finally announced that the third message was the Virgin Mary’s vision of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. The news came during a beatification ceremony for Francisco and Jacinta Marto. Pop. (2001) 7,756; (2011 est.) 7,710.